Monday August 13

We had guests today so nothing got done in the gardens. I will absolutely have to water tomorrow morning because it has gotten hot today.

Tuesday August 14

Supposed to be warm again today--another 90F day. I will water everything and then do inside tasks. Tomorrow they say we start a cooler and wetter pattern.

I did get the watering done--just in time since the sage and both rosemary plants were wilting. Otherwise everything looks good. I have a couple of peppers and tomatoes that will be ready in the next couple of days.

Discovered something new this morning: aseptic milk. One of the grocery ads listed it. According to the web it is actually "ultra high temperature" pasteurized milk that is shelf stable for four months without refrigeration after which it is good refrigerated for seven days. Now that I know what it is I will make sure I don't buy any,

Wednesday August 15

The temperature is supposed to moderate a bit--from 90F down to low 80s. And we might get some rain. The reports say scattered thundershowers which may or may not dump anything on us.

The kids are back in school. We saw our usual crowds Monday when we went out to get some snacks for our guests. We went out a bit later yesterday to do grocery shopping and saw the bus had already passed by. My step-niece's children started yesterday. It seems that the school year starts sooner, ends later each year.

Thursday August 16

I don't think we got any rain overnight and didn't get any yesterday. I will water early. Once upon a time the forecast we had for yesterday and today would have meant a very good probability of rain. Nowadays not so much.

Friday August 17

A heavy downpour woke me earlier. It is too dark yet to see if anything was damaged in the gardens.
Found several nice strawberries which are going to go with our ice cream tomorrow night. They will be joined by several more which should ripen by tomorrow morning.

Charles Hugh Smith has the right idea.

The Atlantic has this piece on a variety of corn that is host to nitrogen fixing bacteria which, in essence, self fertilizes. The only problem is the very long maturation time--8 months. The researchers are doing preliminary work on hybridizing that variety with our commercial ones.